Hudson Printing: Filling the Mid-Range Void

With its updated production platform in place, Hudson was well-positioned to take advantage of growth opportunities as the recession began to ease. Not only is the firm more efficient and profitable, but its customers are delighted at the fast turnaround the printer is now able to deliver.

"Getting a job ready for press, including film-based processes, manual proofs and half-day press checks used to be time-consuming," comments Carrero. "Today, our customers are able to look at the job on-screen and, once approved there, we can have output for them to review within 15 minutes. In a process that literally could have taken days in the past, now they can be in and out in 30 to 45 minutes with job production under way.

"That has really made our customers happy. No one has time to sit around for half a day doing press checks anymore. If we can free them up and make their jobs easier, it benefits all of us."

In addition to a more efficient production process, Hudson has also been able to improve overall quality, reduce time and cost of makeready, and work with a production platform that is much easier to operate. "And the quality has been unbelievable," he adds.

Carrero points out that the 52DI filled a hole in the company's production process. "It was one more tool in our toolbox, assuring that we could meet demand for small- to mid-sized runs that were not economically feasible with our existing toner-based or conventional offset presses. We had the firepower to do the very short runs with our digital presses, and to do large runs with our conventional presses.

"But you can't afford a two-hour makeready for those mid-range runs. It threw our costs out of whack," he adds. "Now we can address it all, from ultra-short-run work all the way up through runs of a couple hundred thousand with an extremely versatile platform."